


Call Me Obsiquious

by SandrC



Series: Balance My Deeds With My Misdeeds [40]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Dvati!Taako and Lup, Extended Us 'verse, Gen, M/M, Merle is the stoner dad and no one will convince me otherwise, imagine SC!Merle in the main story, now don't cry, that way I don't have to do nano, yall keep enabling me and I love it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 12:34:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12681999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC
Summary: I know I’m subservient, but all of this is necessarySometimes my appetite is violently contraryIrreconcilable perceptions appeal to my obsessionsThe nausea is overwhelming(Or: stoner dad is actually very concerned with fitting in and his loss becomes tragic if looked at in the right order.)





	Call Me Obsiquious

**Author's Note:**

> *bangs pots and pans* I! LOVE! MERLE! HIGHCHURCH!
> 
> Anyway, getting off my high horse, you can now thank ohjustdisarmalready for any and all continuing Extended Us universe shit. They continue to enable me. Shame. :)
> 
> Next one in the line is Barold. Or Davenport. Idk. Then the other. Then Lucretia. Hope you're ready to NEVER LEAVE THE PAIN TRAIN!!!

Merle Highchurch is not your standard cleric. Nor your standard botanist. Nor your standard _dwarf_. He is wholly one of a kind and _that_ is why the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration seeks him out and _begs_ him to teach at the academy part of the Institute. They beg him to be a part of the faculty and he mulls it over for some time before he decides to agree.

Merle Highchurch views many things through a hazy lens of calm movement forward. The world—time in general—is akin to the waves lapping at the beachfront. Little by little, things change and it's of little consequence to just accept it as it comes. Fighting the tide only tires you out. You fall prey to the riptide that way. So when one of his students— _two_ , really, but he can recognize a Dvati when he sees them—asks why a botanist and follower of Pan likes to live by the sea instead of the forest, he smiles and shakes his head.

"Pan's not too picky on where he's worshipped. So long as you know that the breath of our planet is 'cause of him and you let him know you appreciate all he does for you and the others around you, he's _pretty_ fucking chill." That leaves the students reeling and he sits back and lights a pipe. Knowledge isn't always cut and dry anyway. Sometimes you just make up shit on the spot.

When those two come back, a third (non-Dvati) in tow, Merle is tickled plumb pink. They bombard him with question after question and share pipes and stories and drinks with him. He laughs as the Dvati—sun elves named Taako and Lup—gesture wildly and talk about Other and Science and Why. He can recognize the Proper to those nouns. It's a habit he picked up in enclaves around home. Proper nouns were often said by Proper and Important people. Proper was a language Merle could easily speak.

And the third? A human with broad shoulders and guarded eyes whose hands are puppy paws—far too big for his lanky body. He is silent but the Dvati talk back and forth to him and _for_ him. His name is Magnus Burnsides and he's smarter than people give him credit for.

(Merle can appreciate that. People often only see the stoner, the cleric, the old man. It's nice to find someone who sees the philosopher, the scientist, the dreamer. Magnus is always welcome in his office.)

When word reaches Merle that Davenport has chosen him for the first exploration outside of their planes, he laughs heartily. The list of other people joining makes him just so... _amused_. Because of _course_ the Dvati—abjuration and transmutation specialists with vested interests in learning Why on top of their bomb-ass cooking skills—and their human—who accepts the accolade with a faux air of confidence—are on that list. Of _course_ Davenport picks Lucretia Efi, a woman with a silver tongue and the skills to make a brilliant chronicler and a powerful magician—if she could come out of her shell and learn to trust others. Of _course_ he snags a secondary mechanic in a shy human named Sildar Hallwinter, not only a necromantic specialist—a rare one at best due to the stigma attached to that particular school of magic—but someone interested in the fundamental laws of Bonds and magic and science. And _himself_? Well, loose lips sink ships after all.

The engine of the StarBlazter— _Pan_ , he fucking loves that name! It's so pointlessly wonderful—runs on that newfangled energy known only as Bonds so the crew of seven are expected to get to know one another because their friendship will _literally_ fuel their ship. Merle sinks into the strange routine of learning all about his crewmates with the grace and smile of a man stoned clean off his ass. It's fucking _hilarious_ to see how they react anyway. If they treat him different because he's chill or if they try and act like he's their superior. It's a fun social psychology experiment.

Magnus, as he has come to know, is a boy that oozes bravado but works hard to reach his goals. People look at Magnus and see a meathead or a muscle bound idiot or a walking weapon but he can also talk circles around anyone in his class. Never mind that he has issues keeping words straight—whether on paper or coming from his mouth—he _knows_ shit. He can _talk_ you _through_ it and that shows a level of understanding that many of the scholarship rides at the Institute are lacking.

(If Merle had a copper piece for every time a student tried to 'break down' his own work on biological variations in raising techniques based on the differentiation between Pannite social customs and traditional gardening he'd fucking eat his goddamn pipes. Apparently age meant you were an old coot who didn't know shit, accolades be damned. But fuckall if he couldn't look those smarmy-ass students square in the eyes and tell them his dissertation work in a single sentence. "Plants feel love and it helps them grow in the most barren of environments.")

Taako and Lup—proud that he can tell them apart from the get-go and irritated that he refuses to ever do so—are constants in his life long before the StarBlazter crew is announced. And while they're Dvati—a trait that ignorant fuckos often mistake as a lack of individuality—they're both _so_ unique. Taako is less emotionally present but more emotionally _vulnerable_. He oftentimes shoots his mouth off without thinking and then when he's called out or someone retorts in a way that _genuinely_ hurts him, falls to pieces quickly. Lup has a fierce temper and the firepower (ha!) to back it up but is often the grounding force to Taako's more feral responses to unwanted stimuli. Taako chews on the tip of his braid and flaps his hands when emotions boil over. Lup pins her hair in a messy bun with pens that she gnaws on when she's thinking. They both dress in what they call "high fashion" but Taako looks like a Fantasy Goodwill employee took a course in the College of Satire and Lup looks like a very ripped Fantasy Sigourney Weaver in plaid.

(He knows that they view many people as Other—both due to the Dvati thing and their scrappy upbringing—but it isn't hard to see their idea of Us slowly soak his status as Other. It's heartwarming and he may or may not work extra hard to embarrass them like a dad would do. They love it. They _hate_ it. It's perfect.)

Lucretia Efi is not someone Merle is unacquainted with. She ghostwrote many of his favorite biologies and tends to spend her spare time in his greenhouse, sketching various flora. His plants speak highly of her and her quiet singing. The morning glories especially love her and wind around her favorite sitting spot so she doesn't crush them but they can be as near to her as possible. While she doesn't attend his class—she opted for a geological earth science for her degree through the Institute—she still attends his public lectures. Despite all that, however, Merle senses a shell she's built around herself and he knows that only patience and time will open it up to reveal the pearl she's formed.

(One day she finds him, Taako, Lup, and Magnus toking it up on the Institute's roof, a Tenser's Floating Disk keeping them _technically_ off the physical roof so the Others in Power can't get pissy about breaking the school drug ban. Her eyebrows furrow as she takes in the sight and, as she is about to leave, Taako lowers the Disk so they're eye-level with her. " _C'mon_. Join the party!"

"You don't gotta get fucking blazed with us," Lup continues, "but books read better closer to the suns."

Lucretia ponders. A nod later, she's aboard the party-Disk and reading a book on metaphysical translocation of energy from the Plane of Magic to the Prime Material Plane and how this breaks the laws of thermodynamics. Taako is laying across her lap, giggling as she explains how the conservation of energy means that either the Plane of Magic either possesses a way to generate magical energy from nothing or the Prime Material Plane is simply inefficient in its usage. Lup is arm-wrestling Magnus and losing. And Merle? He just watches as Lucretia slowly opens up, blossoming like a delicate rose.)

Sildar Hallwinter is an enigma at first. Lucretia is _shy_ , sure, but Sildar is just a plain _anxious_ _mess_. He babbles about his work often, trailing off only to apologize for getting carried away and scurrying away to hide from the imagined shame. Lup, Taako, and Magnus call him Barry Bluejeans—the only explanation given is "he fucking wears denim _all_ the _god_ damn time! Does he even _own_ slacks or sweatpants?! Those shits have to be able to stand up on their own!"—so Merle adopts it on principle. He does, however, afford Barry the courtesy of explaining the nickname, as the leap from Sildar to Barry is...a _stretch_.

"Family called me Darry. Lady at orientation fucked up my nametag so then it became Barry. Now hardly anyone calls me Sildar; though the Bluejeans thing is new..." He rubs the back of his head and Merle just claps him on the back.

"Worse nicknames out there!" The hearty laugh that follows draws a soft chuckle from Barry. "Now let's get you some edibles so you can just fucking chill, huh?"

(Barry doesn't heed Merle's warning and consumes six in one sitting. Lup and Taako have to use Sleep and sit on him until he calms down. On the upside, the game of truth or dare that night was wild. There are at least five Fantasy Vines of Barry stripping and then running down the quad, in the buff, screaming about how the policies set in place that discriminate against peoples of a more monstrous nature are fucking bullshit and how they should do a fucking...a fucking nude protest and like...idk...fucking _signs_ and shit! Thankfully none of them show off the surgery scars on his chest or the width of his hips or the scarring and bruising on his mons pubis. The morning after, Merle 'treats' Barry to a 'cure' for his nausea and exhaustion and silently smiles as he chokes down the kale-egg-soy protein-durian-habanero-wheat germ slurry and complains about the taste. Merle deigns to not tell him it isn't a cure so much as a punishment but the misery on his face is enough to keep him offering the 'cure' long after Barry builds a tolerance and learns how much THC helps with his anxiety. He never catches on to the ruse.)

Davenport is, by far, the _easiest_ of the crew to nail down. They are, after all, hovering on the edge of a shift from pale to flush. But when Dav gets insecure about his skills as a captain or his use on this mission or whether or not these people he handpicked will die upon exit, Merle gently rubs his ears and cradles his lover to his chest. It is fucking adorable to the twins but he swore them to secrecy. And by 'swore to secrecy' he actually threatened to use Ensnare and fuck a plant in front of them. They acquiesced _immediately_.

(Late nights are spent kissing and marking and making love and cuddling and whispering sweet nothings to one another. Merle becomes an anchor for Davenport's fear and it is everything they need. All Davenport has to do is love him back.)

There, on the StarBlazter, Merle adapts to his new found family. When their trip goes from two months of exploration to decades of running from an all-consuming Hunger, his calm demeanor grounds the destructive impulses of his friends. And as Taako and Lup stop classifying the crew of the StarBlazter as Other, he acts as a weighted blanket for their anxiety and woes. And a _helluva_ good drug dealer.

A century passes and then Lucretia makes everyone forget and she tries to set him up with a life he dreamed about once but...you can't take _one eighth_ of a person and give them away. That's not even a whole _being_. So the Merle that marries Hekuba and then leaves her is a broken shard of a stupid hippie stoner teacher who once was so wise but now just lied and lied and lied. He didn't have a use anymore. He didn't have a purpose anymore. It's unbearable and he doesn't know _why_.

(John summons him to Parlay one last time and, memories intact, Merle swims in the sudden _wholeness_ that he feels. He's been fighting the tide for so long that letting go is a blessing. John remind him of the joy of an Us. And if no one else forgives Lucretia, Merle at least does.)

(No point in holding a grudge against yourself, after all?)


End file.
